ABSTRACT

It is misleading to attempt to trace commonality and differences between Freud’s thinking and current attachment theory. Freud’s theory does not represent a homogenous corpus (Sandler et al. 1997). Traditionally, his contribution is divided into four phases. The first is the pre-psychoanalytic phase, covering a series of papers, mostly on neurological topics; second is the affect-trauma model, during which Freud put forward the view that the etiology of neurosis rested in the actual events of childhood development (Freud and Breuer 1895); third is the topographical model, which emphasized fantasy driven by biological drive states (Freud 1900, 1905); the fourth phase included the dual instinct theory (Freud 1920) and the structural model of the mind (Freud 1923). Each of these phases has distinct points of correspondence with and divergence from attachment theory, and a skillful Freud scholar could readily construct a picture in which the originator of psychoanalysis is seen as a either a friend or a foe of attachment theory.